Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The Silent Evolution.

Photo: Jason DeCaires Taylor

Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The...

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Museo del Titere, Huamantla, Tlaxcala, Mexico

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Museo del Titere, Huamantla, Tlaxcala, Mexico

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An exhibit in the Museo de las Momias (Mummy Museum). The dozens of "mummies" are one-time Guanajuato residents, mummified because of local conditions, who were evicted from crypts when family money ran out.

Photo: Spud Hilton, The Chronicle

An exhibit in the Museo de las Momias (Mummy Museum). The dozens of...

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Pathways leading to Maya houses, each with its own theme; demonstration of processing cocoa beans, bean growing on tree.

Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The Silent Evolution.

Photo: Jason DeCaires Taylor

Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The...

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Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The Silent Evolution.

Photo: Jason DeCaires Taylor

Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The...

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Exterior of the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Exterior of the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

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Pathways leading to Maya houses, each with its own theme; demonstration of processing cocoa beans, bean growing on tree.

Photo: Ecomuseo Del Cacao

Pathways leading to Maya houses, each with its own theme;...

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Mine interior exhibits, tunnel; Mina el Eden, Zacatecas, Mexico

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Mine interior exhibits, tunnel; Mina el Eden, Zacatecas, Mexico

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Mine interior exhibits, tunnel; Mina el Eden, Zacatecas, Mexico

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Mine interior exhibits, tunnel; Mina el Eden, Zacatecas, Mexico

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A tour group examines an exhibit in the Museo de las Momias (Mummy Museum). The dozens of "mummies" are one-time Guanajuato residents, mummified because of local conditions, who were evicted from crypts when family money ran out.

Photo: Spud Hilton, The Chronicle

A tour group examines an exhibit in the Museo de las Momias (Mummy...

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Museo del Desierto, Saltillo, Coahuila

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Museo del Desierto, Saltillo, Coahuila

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Museo del Desierto, Saltillo, Coahuila

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Museo del Desierto, Saltillo, Coahuila

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Museo del Titere, Huamantla, Tlaxcala, Mexico

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Museo del Titere, Huamantla, Tlaxcala, Mexico

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Interior of the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Interior of the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

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Interior of the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Interior of the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

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Amber arts in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Amber arts in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas

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Artwork at the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

Photo: Ricardo Espinosa, Mexico Tourism Board

Artwork at the Museo Nacional de la Muerte.

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Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The Silent Evolution.

Photo: Jason DeCaires Taylor

Photos are from the latest installation of 400 figures, titled "The...

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"Dream Collector" sculpture at the world's largest underwater sculpture park.

Mexico's long history of great civilizations and religious art has given rise to a trove of fine-art, anthropology and folk-art museums, with Mexico City claiming more museums than any other city except Paris﻿. Still, if you want to burrow deep into Mexico's culture and psyche, make time for some of its less-heralded, one-of-a-kind museums. They're often quirky, sometimes just plain weird, and always fun. Here are some of our favorites.

It should surprise no one that Tim Burton ("Edward Scissorhands," "The Corpse Bride," among other weirdly wonderful movies) was obsessed with Guanajuato's mummy museum and hightailed it there when he went to Mexico in 2007. More than 100 mummies — not the cotton-wrapped ghouls of horror movies, but bodies preserved by the soil composition and arid climate — stand or repose in glass cases, their expressions suggesting amusement, alarm or resignation. Exhumed between 1865 and 1958, they still wear remnants of costumes from centuries past. The museum is said to have the world's smallest mummy, the fetus of a woman who died during a cholera epidemic.

Paris, Bruges and Prague had chocolate museums first, but way before that, the Maya had chocolate. As of last winter, they now have a museum as well. The museum focuses as much on cocoa's mystical significance to the Maya as on the confection itself. A stone path leads to traditional thatched-roof houses, each with its own theme: cocoa's sacred role in the Maya's spiritual world; the Maya's daily life (demonstrated in an outdoor kitchen, a wild orchid garden and a colony of the native non-stinging bees that are crucial to cocoa's growth); and the laborious chocolate-making process...capped by a serving of the chocolate drink savored by the ancients.

Cancún's new sculpture museum is visible only to snorkelers and divers. Standing on the bottom of the ocean between Punta Cancún, Isla Mujeres and Punta Nizuc, it opened in November 2009 with three life-size sculptures. By its grand opening in November, it had grown to more than 400, making it the world's largest underwater museum. The figures, created by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor from casts of local people, are specially formulated concrete that encourages growth of new coral and other sea life; the idea being to siphon off some of the tourists and give the famous reef a rest to help it recover from the already ample burdens of divers, marine pollution and warming waters.

Bologna receives credit for the first cartoon, created in the late 16th century, but when it emerged from Europe some 200 years later, Mexico embraced it and elevated it to high art. Housed in an 18th century Baroque building, the museum holds well over 1,000 panels from the early 1800s to the present. The more Mexican history you know, the more you'll appreciate them, but displays such as bizarre 19th century prints of skeletal mariachis by José Guadalupe Posada, whose grinning, fancy-hatted Calavera de Catarina (Catarina's Skull) has become a nationwide Day of the Dead symbol, ﻿are guaranteed to entertain. More recent cartoons, which now target the entire world, are lacerating.

Bearing out the old saw that there are only 10 stories in the world, Hamlet, Faust and Don Juan have been reincarnated time and again. Don Quixote in particular has captured artists' imaginations: Dalí, Picasso, Miró, Posada (see No. 4), Daumier and Pedro Coronel are but a few. Just an hour or two in the city will tell you Guanajuato is mad for Quixote. This lively museum holds more than 800 oils, watercolors, sculpture, tapestries, clocks and even chess sets honoring the man from La Mancha and his hapless pal, Sancho Panza. High entertainment — and the museum's origin is a great tale unto itself.

The land of the Day of the Dead has to have a museum devoted to the subject, right? While death is a theme in every culture, Mexico gives it a place of honor — and in 2008 it gave death a museum. A life-size Catrina in an old-timey black gown and broad lacy hat greets visitors to this 2,000-piece collection, fittingly located in the hometown of Posada, her creator. From an Aztec miniature crystal skull to masterworks of contemporary art, it documents the Mexican view of death as part of the continuity of life. No spooky vampires or witches here, but vibrant bullfighters, brides, children, revolutionary heroes and lovers. What they impart is nothing macabre or depressing, but an unexpected sense of joy.

Lasa Pozas is a long way from anywhere you've ever heard of, and that's just what English millionaire poet Edward James was looking for in 1945 while planning to build his own private Eden. The result is part Frederick Law Olmsted, part Salvador Dalí — an 80-acre paradise in rainforest-cloaked mountains, studded with towering concrete Surrealist sculptures. Along with thousands of orchids and other tropical plants, it harbors hidden bridges, doors to nowhere and waterfalls cascading into swimming holes. Oh, and did we mention the castle where he once lived? It's now a hotel, La Posada El Castillo.

A colossal incision traces a silver vein deep into the mountain where this fantastically rich mine started up in 1586. It pumped out treasure until 1960, reopening in 1975 as a tourist attraction. A miners' train carries you more than 1,000 feet into La Bufa Hill's core to galleries displaying local rocks and minerals, and hanging bridges and tunnels that speak of the burdens borne by Indian workers who extracted silver, gold, copper, zinc and iron from the stone. After the tour, you can opt to take a funicular between two mountains, feasting on an incomparable view from 2,000 feet. Another alternative: Take the small train through La Esperanza Cavern to drink and dance the night away at the Discoteque El Malacate, housed in a former grinding vault.

Built into a derelict blast furnace (Horno Alto No. 3), in Monterrey's Parque Fundidora, the 4-year-old museum's centerpiece is an exhibit that brings the old furnace roaring back to simulated life, pouring melted iron courtesy of special effects. The original ore elevator has been refitted with a funicular-type car that lifts visitors 140 feet up the tower to walk on catwalks around the pipes and stoves, offering panoramas of the city and distant mountains. The new Steel Gallery, with 99 interactive exhibits, is a mainly underground architectural work of art in itself. Its roof system, Latin America's largest, is planted with native grasses and sedums, and is designed to collect rainwater. (Note: Drug violence spiked in Monterrey last year, so travelers unfamiliar with the area might want to hold off on this one right now. But it definitely deserves a place on your list for a later, safer time.)